Untitled - Mariposa Folk Festival

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I,YASN'T
THAT
A TINIE!
YEAR ONE
THE IDEA FOR A FOLK MUSIC
festival in Orillia was hatched in the
front parlor of Ruth and Casey
Jones. Ruth, an avid Ed McCurdYfan
and local Orillia enthusiast, thought
that a folk music event in the area
would be great and a Project she
could put her heart into.
It was the fall of 1960 and the folk
music craze had begun - paperman. That was where planning
began for the first MariPosa (for
Belafonte
and The Kingston Trio had unleashed
bands of roving guitar and banjo
players all over Norlh America. The
Newport Folk Festival was launched
and Toronto's coffee houses were
turned from chess to folk music.
During the winter of that Year a
meeting was'held in a small loft
apartment above a women's wear
store across from the UniversitY
Avenue theatre. Present were Jones,
singer lan Tyson, PsYchologist and
banjo player Ted Schafer and myself,
then a music promoter and news-
Leacock) Folk Festival.
Jones would co-ordinate the
Orillia end, I would Produce the
festival, Tyson would give artistic
direction and all the graphic material,
and Schafer would write and be the
MC. Ted's brother designed the
stage set, eventually went on to
become one of Canada's leading set
designers - Peter Wyborn, the Travellers, Alan
Mills, Jean Carignan, Bonny
Dobson, Tom Kines, Omar Blondahl,
Finvola Redden, Al Cherney, Mary
Jane & Winston Young, and Merrick
Jarret. lt was a grand weekend
complete with a symposium, a free
Lawrence Schafer. children's concert, folk music films, a
Offering consulting advice were street jamboree and finishing with a
Edith Fowke and Estelle Klein of gala hootenay.
Toronto, and radioman Pete
McGarvey in Orillia.
Many of the performers have since
passed away leaving behind not only
Over those two days in August of the memories of the music they
1961, twelve acts Performed for wrote and performed, but the
approximately 9000 concefigoers. lt remindei'of that first Mariposa Folk
was purposely an all-Canadian Festival. Little did any of us realize
event, spanning all types of music in that twenty five years later, after
the folk spectrum. Perf ormers many changes of venue and style,
included Jacques Labrecque (with the festival would survive
Clement Laplante and Emma
Castor), the York CountY Bluegrass
Band, lan & Sylvia, Alan McRae and
- and why,
isn't that what folk music is all about?
by Ed Cowan